Having a Bad Day?: Get 'yer Hugs here!!

[Briar King]

My son and I could even go be geeks with you one day after I fix my trucks radiator.

[marsoupial they/them]

1 hour ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Remember when I said that I'd really missed my siblings? Well, I don't think I understood how much until I found myself trying to keep my Uber driver from seeing me cry. I managed to sort-of keep it together until I got into my apartment, and then I just laid on my bed and cried some more. I haven't really stopped. 

And I don't know what it is. I stay away for eight months and I'm fine, but as soon as I get back from Spokane, I start sobbing. Maybe it took seeing my siblings—the only people in the world who know what to say when I start randomly quoting The Emperor's New Groove or obscure Nickelodeon cartoons—to make me realize how lonely I've been. Which is weird, because for the past eight months, I haven't felt lonely. Not really. But then I go back to Spokane for a few days, to a house full of people and pugs and family waiting for me at the airport, and I get back into the groove with my siblings to where it feels like I never left….and then I go back to Louisiana where I have to get all my luggage and Bruce back home by myself, to an empty apartment and some people who I think might be my friends, but are still in that phase where I don't know for sure and don't want to push my luck. 

And I missed the Northwest. I missed pine trees. I missed snow. I missed little hole-in-the-wall coffee shops everywhere that are all delicious. I missed hipsters and people dressing grunge. I missed that initial rudeness and sarcasm masking friendliness. I've spent the past two years telling myself that I'm a nomad, that I don't really have any strong attachment to any specific place, and then I get back to Washington and realize how deep that lie went. 

I haven't forgotten what's brought me here. On my first full day back, Twimom reminded me of why I wanted some distance between us. She was sweet for the rest of the visit, but still, I think distance is best. And seeing Twidad was nice, but I didn't miss him too much either. Not the way I missed my siblings. They're the closest friends I've ever had—I know that now. 

I went to Spokane thinking that I'd remind myself of why I left….but now I just want to go back. 

*hugs*

[Delightful]

56 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Yeah, I know I can move back. And I'm actually seriously considering Seattle or Portland (despite the higher cost of living) or maybe a city in Idaho, though I'd prefer the former two for obvious reasons. I know I'll need some distance between me and Twimom. I think that's what's best for us. It keeps me sane, and keeps her from nitpicking my every flaw. I said I'm not going back to Spokane, and I meant it—I'm not putting myself in a place where I'm expected to frame my life around what the family wants, and to play hostess to Grandmother and Twimom when they inevitably decide to drop in. But Seattle is a four-and-a-half hour drive and Portland is five-and-a-half hours, which would mean that if they wanted to "drop in," they'd have to really plan ahead. 

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe I learned that distance is good….but that two thousand miles might be excessive. 

*Hugs*
Sometimes, so I'm told, you have to go from one extreme to the other until you can find a balanced middle ground. That's ok. 

I know. I miss my siblings too and it takes time and mutual interests to build up that kind of nerdy quotability and comfort-levels with other people. I mean I'm finding nerdy Facebook groups helpful, and we're here for you, but its not really the same thing. I feel you. 

16 minutes ago, Kaymyth said:

I think what you're missing is connections.  You're an introvert, so you can handle lots of alone time, but finding folks who Sing the Song of Your People is a serious boost.  You need friends.  Not just casual, hey-I'm-friendly-with-this-person acquaintances, but real friends who will come over and binge-watch nerdy TV shows with you and call you up to go on a random adventure exploring someplace they heard was neat.  Friends who will talk Sanderson and Buffy and My Little Pony and Gravity Falls with you for stupid hours on end.

My advice:  start looking up local nerd culture things.  Find a gaming store that has open board game nights.  Find a local con to check out (I know there's a literary sci-fi/fantasy con in New Orleans, but the name escapes me right now), make a mistcloak, and go.  Instead of hoping that you'll find people in your day-to-day life who share your interests, actively seek out places that cater to those interests and meet people that way.

What she said! Or if thats too social look for local Facebook groups or something for geeks, see what's out there. Host something geeky at the library and see who turns up! Libraries are social hubs for Our People. 

It's gonna get better. It just might take time. That's what I keep telling myself too.

*more hugs*
 

PS: Can you message your siblings not in the family group? Don't mention parents or contentious issues just like "hey this weirdly labelled product reminds me of that time you were 5 and we were having fun" kind of stuff. You get the friendly interaction without the guilt tripping.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Thanks for the hugs, guys.  

@Briar King, I think you have a point with being emotionally charged. I decided to put up my new Doug the Pug calendar two days early, and burst into tears while saying "storm you" to 2016. It….probably doesn't help that I've gotten out of bed at 3 AM two days in a row, and that I didn't really have a proper lunch today.  

@Kaymyth, I hadn't thought of those things, but I'll give them a try. I'll see if one of the game nights happens to fall on a night I have off; I'd intended to join the writer's group that meets at the library here, but I work every night they meet. Maybe the brain weasels will quiet their chant of "they won't like yooooouuuuuuuuuu" after I've gotten some sleep. 

@Deliiiiiightful, I hadn't thought of geeky Facebook groups, but I'll see about giving them a try. And I'm still thinking about moving back to the Northwest; I really do love it there, for reasons other than "it is the place where my siblings are." One thing that gives me pause is the higher cost of living in cities that aren't Spokane (rent in Spokane is stupid cheap, but it's much higher in Seattle and Portland and other Cool Cities), but from what I've seen, wages in more expensive cities tend to be proportional to expenses, so I don't know how worried I'd have to be. I'd have to look into it some more, though I know that with my newly acquired Adulting Skills, I'll be better able to estimate how much money I'll need to keep my current standard of living. 
But seriously, I have been wondering for a while if Louisiana is where I want to stay long-term. I like it and all, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I want to make it my home. It's a great place, but I don't know if it's my great place. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

3 hours ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Thanks for the hugs, guys.  

@Briar King, I think you have a point with being emotionally charged. I decided to put up my new Doug the Pug calendar two days early, and burst into tears while saying "storm you" to 2016. It….probably doesn't help that I've gotten out of bed at 3 AM two days in a row, and that I didn't really have a proper lunch today.  

@Kaymyth, I hadn't thought of those things, but I'll give them a try. I'll see if one of the game nights happens to fall on a night I have off; I'd intended to join the writer's group that meets at the library here, but I work every night they meet. Maybe the brain weasels will quiet their chant of "they won't like yooooouuuuuuuuuu" after I've gotten some sleep. 

@Deliiiiiightful, I hadn't thought of geeky Facebook groups, but I'll see about giving them a try. And I'm still thinking about moving back to the Northwest; I really do love it there, for reasons other than "it is the place where my siblings are." One thing that gives me pause is the higher cost of living in cities that aren't Spokane (rent in Spokane is stupid cheap, but it's much higher in Seattle and Portland and other Cool Cities), but from what I've seen, wages in more expensive cities tend to be proportional to expenses, so I don't know how worried I'd have to be. I'd have to look into it some more, though I know that with my newly acquired Adulting Skills, I'll be better able to estimate how much money I'll need to keep my current standard of living. 
But seriously, I have been wondering for a while if Louisiana is where I want to stay long-term. I like it and all, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I want to make it my home. It's a great place, but I don't know if it's my great place. 

My sister currently lives in Portland, and the cost of housing is completely insane.  And it's not just that - the city has a massive degree inflation problem, where you're expected to have specialized schooling even just to be a freakin' barista.  The place is a bit nuts.

[Briar King]

How are you feeling today Twi?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

19 hours ago, Kaymyth said:

My sister currently lives in Portland, and the cost of housing is completely insane.  And it's not just that - the city has a massive degree inflation problem, where you're expected to have specialized schooling even just to be a freakin' barista.  The place is a bit nuts.

That….is crazy.  

4 minutes ago, Briar King said:

How are you feeling today Twi?

Much, much better. I've decided to take more control of my life here in Louisiana, while I decide what to do. I'm going to make my apartment less first apartment-y. It doesn't really have any sort of personal stamp on it, from a combination of not knowing my personal decorating style and being more focused on building my savings back up from the move. So, I attacked the massive pile of junk mail today, in addition to buying groceries and getting one of my tires repaired. I think that'll help me feel less desperate to move back to the Northwest right away. 

[+Slowswift]

Tomorrow, I believe, will mark the two-week mark for having lost my phone.  

[Briar King]

Good to hear. You ll balance back out soon enough I suspect. The 1st meeting was going to be hard no matter what but I had a feeling it was going to be way to soon for you(or anyone for that matter). Hang in there and get back to work.

[Mestiv he/him]

Got in a huge fight with my fiancé and I'm not sure if we'll greet the new year together or not. 

[Jondesu he/him]

I'm literally shaking with rage right now. I've been going through this constant pain and fatigue plus fibromyalgia for 3 full years now (as of tomorrow morning), and my wife has been very understanding and sympathetic (she knows I'm pushing myself just to stay as involved as I can, and I'm not choosing to be lazy and inactive). 

My mom apparently doesn't feel that way. She just called me to say she thinks I need to "buck up" and start helping my wife again, as if I've been sitting around doing nothing and being a drain on everyone's resources. I knew she didn't understand before, not fully, but she'd never been that insensitive or outrageous before. My wife heard the whole thing too, and completely understands why I'm sitting here shaking and crying because of how rude and untrue it was.

Edit: This phone call came while I was incapacitated on the couch from the head pain, too.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Jondesu

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

1 hour ago, Mestiv said:

Got in a huge fight with my fiancé and I'm not sure if we'll greet the new year together or not. 

Oh no!  I hope you can make up, but in any case, hugs? 

14 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I'm literally shaking with rage right now. I've been going through this constant pain and fatigue plus fibromyalgia for 3 full years now (as of tomorrow morning), and my wife has been very understanding and sympathetic (she knows I'm pushing myself just to stay as involved as I can, and I'm not choosing to be lazy and inactive). 

My mom apparently doesn't feel that way. She just called me to say she thinks I need to "buck up" and start helping my wife again, as if I've been sitting around doing nothing and being a drain on everyone's resources. I knew she didn't understand before, not fully, but she'd never been that insensitive or outrageous before. My wife heard the whole thing too, and completely understands why I'm sitting here shaking and crying because of how rude and untrue it was.

Edit: This phone call came while I was incapacitated on the couch from the head pain, too.

Believe me, I know how it feels to have a mom like that. It's like she's saying, "Because I can't see or feel this pain of yours, it must not exist, so go and be the happy, healthy child I want." Really sorry you have one of those moms, though. 

[Jondesu he/him]

27 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Oh no!  I hope you can make up, but in any case, hugs? 

Believe me, I know how it feels to have a mom like that. It's like she's saying, "Because I can't see or feel this pain of yours, it must not exist, so go and be the happy, healthy child I want." Really sorry you have one of those moms, though. 

The worst part is she hasn't been like this. There's been little moments, sure, but overall I thought she'd actually understood.

I'm coming to understand the brain weasels idea too.

[Briar King]

My word the sky has been unleashed the past few hrs. I can barely see a few acres down the road out my window. Supposed to stop in about 4 more hrs so atleast I ll be able to do fireworks with kids

[Briar King]

Here I don't feel like sticking myself further out then I have to. I tried taking a pic through window when it was really pouring but cam was focusing on the screen everytime. 

[Erunion he/him]

@Mestiv - have a huge, stupid, massive hug. That sucks so hard. 

@Jondesu - Have another hug. At least your wife seems to be awesome with this

 @TwiLyghtSansSparkles - You got this! Go be awesome! And yes, the pacific northwest is pretty grand, but it's stupid expensive up here. I'm in the Vancouver Canada area, and housing is as bad as it is in Seattle, if not worse. But the northwest is pretty lovely otherwise (...hence the stupid cost of living, I guess). 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Guys I'm so sad. 2016 is ending and it's been a great year.

 

 

HAHA JK STORM YOU 2016 YOU WILL CAUSE NO MORE HARDSHIPS FOR ANY OF US

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

On December 29, 2016 at 4:28 PM, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Thanks for the hugs, guys.  

@Briar King, I think you have a point with being emotionally charged. I decided to put up my new Doug the Pug calendar two days early, and burst into tears while saying "storm you" to 2016. It….probably doesn't help that I've gotten out of bed at 3 AM two days in a row, and that I didn't really have a proper lunch today.  

@Kaymyth, I hadn't thought of those things, but I'll give them a try. I'll see if one of the game nights happens to fall on a night I have off; I'd intended to join the writer's group that meets at the library here, but I work every night they meet. Maybe the brain weasels will quiet their chant of "they won't like yooooouuuuuuuuuu" after I've gotten some sleep. 

@Deliiiiiightful, I hadn't thought of geeky Facebook groups, but I'll see about giving them a try. And I'm still thinking about moving back to the Northwest; I really do love it there, for reasons other than "it is the place where my siblings are." One thing that gives me pause is the higher cost of living in cities that aren't Spokane (rent in Spokane is stupid cheap, but it's much higher in Seattle and Portland and other Cool Cities), but from what I've seen, wages in more expensive cities tend to be proportional to expenses, so I don't know how worried I'd have to be. I'd have to look into it some more, though I know that with my newly acquired Adulting Skills, I'll be better able to estimate how much money I'll need to keep my current standard of living. 
But seriously, I have been wondering for a while if Louisiana is where I want to stay long-term. I like it and all, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I want to make it my home. It's a great place, but I don't know if it's my great place. 

Tacoma's actually a pretty cool place. I don't think it's as expensive as the other places but still in that area. Also, it'd be pretty cool to have the pug-whisperer living in the same city I do. 

Edited January 1, 2017 by Assassin in Burgundy

[marsoupial they/them]

I missed you guys! 

I'm sorry for all the rust you're all going through.

All I can offer is my listening and my hugs. 

*hugs*

[Delightful]

I have a stupid. 

I uploaded a bunch of my drawings to Facebook and no one has commented or reacted so now I feel unloved. 

I know that doesn't make logical sense. But we mistborn need not make sense. 

[marsoupial they/them]

2 minutes ago, Deliiiiiightful said:

I have a stupid. 

I uploaded a bunch of my drawings to Facebook and no one has commented or reacted so now I feel unloved. 

I know that doesn't make logical sense. But we mistborn need not make sense. 

Post 'em on here! I'm sure they're terrific, Del!

[Delightful]

1 hour ago, bleeder said:

Post 'em on here! I'm sure they're terrific, Del!

I'm worried if I do someone can reverse search the image and work out my name and find my Facebook from that. I like Shard anonymity. 

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

 

What if you took pictures of the drawing each in different area a than they were the first time? Maybe have two of them in the same picture? Possibly add/change the colors in some or all of them? If you still feel uncomfortable, then you should at least know that, based on what we've all seen of your work so far (both written and drawn) I think it's safe to assume that you have drawn some absolutely stupendacular* drawings. 

(*stupendous+spectacular)

Edited January 2, 2017 by ShadowLord_Lith

[little wilson she/her]

Last night, Utah gave me the middle finger.

I am from Idaho, and I flew to my parents' for Christmas. Since my work was closed on the Friday and Monday around Christmas and New Year's, I noticed that I could use 3 of my PTO days to get 11 days off, which is more time off work than I've had in over 4 years. I decided to do this. Those days off were great. Especially the last 6 days of it. Relaxing, sleeping 9 hours a night, not waking up until 9-10am. It was beautiful. But all good things come to an end, and I had to get ready for my flight back to Utah.

It's only a 30 minute flight from my hometown to the Salt Lake International Airport. They allot an hour for it though, for preparation and stuff. So my flight was supposed to take off at 6:20 pm and land at 7:20. Boarding at 5:55. The plane didn't even land until about 6:00, and then there was a plan from LA that landed, and they unloaded that before they let us board the one to SLC (it's a very small airport), so we didn't even end up boarding the plane until 6:30. The LA flight that was taking off after us had overbooked, and they wanted some passengers to move to the SLC flight, so then they had that paperwork to do, with the comp stuff there and everything and that delayed us more. And then they decided to do a roll call of the passengers. Twice. Yes, I said a roll call on a plane. They went down the rows one by one and marked everyone off. And then they did it again. Note: these planes hold a max of 50 passengers. Yeah, we didn't take off until about 7:15. And didn't land until just before 8. Since so many other passengers had connecting flights that were either boarding right then or just about to board and I'd already "missed" my train to Provo (more on that in a bit), I waited until almost everyone else had left the plane.

Provo is about 40 minutes to an hour south of Salt Lake City, in good driving conditions with moderate traffic. There is a mediocre public transit system in the Salt Lake area; the street level system is called TRAX and the north-south train running from Ogden to Provo is Frontrunner. Both are operated by the Utah Transit Authority. I checked the UTA site prior to even leaving Provo before Christmas to make sure that it would be running on January 2nd, and there were no notices about limited services. I checked the site again when I was arranging a ride from the Frontrunner station in Provo to my place. Again, no notices. I get to the TRAX station at the airport (you have to take TRAX to Frontrunner, since Frontrunner doesn't go to the airport), and check the app on my phone. It's showing no Frontrunner services. I call my dad and have him check the site again, and he doesn't see any notices about it, though he ended up finding a notice on a back page that no one who is looking at schedules is ever going to look at. I confirm with a UTA guy on the platform when the TRAX train shows up that yes, Frontrunner is indeed not running.

I called my sister who lives in the Salt Lake area. She usually works Monday nights, but miraculously, she was not working when I called. She said she'd come pick me up. It was snowing, and the roads were pretty bad. Over the next hour while I waited for her, I learned that there were no shuttles from the airport to Provo for the rest of the night, and I was mildly worried that I would have to stay at my sister's for the night, and find a way to Provo early in the morning, when it was unlikely that the roads would be any better then (surprise: they weren't).

My sister finally got to the airport at about 9:40 pm. The roads were terrible. Some areas weren't too bad--in fact, they were almost completely clear--but other areas were packed with snow and there was no traction at all (this was mostly just one highway that is notoriously bad. Once we got off that road, even the snow-packed roads had at least a bit of traction). We avoided the freeways, staying on city roads because those were generally better (and the other people on the road generally weren't  tailgating and driving too fast). I did not get home until 11:45. She did not get back to her place until 1:30. She is an angel and I love her. 

But anyway. I could feel the stress in my body, so I decided to sacrifice some of my sleep to take a long, hot shower to wash out some of the stress. And the hot water ran out not even 8 minutes in to my shower. So I went to bed. And I woke up multiple times to snow plows making a racket out on the main road (which is right outside my window), police sirens heading to accidents, and my roommate's dog's high-pitched whine and barking at the sirens and everything else. And a train's horn (because now the trains are running. Of course...)

And then this morning, my car got stuck while trying to get out of my driveway, because of the snow that had already been on the ground and the about 4-6 inches that were dropped after I got back last night (I could barely see the indentations of my footprints from the night before). I got to work 20 minutes late (which was fine because my boss knew what was going on, but still).

This year is off to a grand start.

[Silverblade5 he/him]

@little wilson

I'm so sorry! *hugs*